Dreaming of Love Read online

  Emily stared after him, feeling lonely already. She dressed and then wrote a note on the back of one of her business cards from her purse.

  Dear Sure Thing,

  Miss you already and you’ve only been gone a minute.

  Xo,

  E.

  She made the bed and placed the card on his pillow, and then went to her room and showered and dressed for the day. Downstairs she found Adelina on the porch, carrying Luca on her hip.

  “Good morning, Adelina. Good morning, Luca.” She tickled his feet, and he giggled.

  “Ah, Emily. Good morning.” She held Emily’s gaze a beat too long, reminding her that she knew she and Dae had spent the night together. Emily felt her cheeks heat up again.

  “Your handsome man has left you a gift.” She pointed to a small package wrapped with a red ribbon beside the plate on the table.

  “Thank you.” Surprised, she picked it up and glanced back up at Adelina. Her embarrassment was swept away, replaced with excitement over the thoughtful man who was leaving her gifts and opening up her heart in ways she’d only dreamed of.

  “He has love in his eyes when he speaks of you.” Adelina pulled out the chair for Emily and poured fresh coffee into her cup while murmuring something in Italian to Luca.

  “Casa Dei Desideri,” Adelina sang as she poured fresh coffee into Emily’s cup.

  House of Wishes. Emily smiled. “I want to see the Casa Dei Desideri, Adelina, but today my schedule is very tight.”

  Adelina kissed Luca’s cheek three times. “Casa Dei Desideri brought us Luca. Write your wish and then visit. You’ll see. Your wish will come true.” She looked off into the distance and sighed. “Albero di amore.”

  Emily settled into her chair, once again wishing she had taken a refresher course in Italian.

  Beneath the wrapping she found a small memo pad. Inside, handwritten in a way that reminded her of Dae—easy, curved letters that glided over the page, the way he’d glided into her life.

  Sweet Emily, when we’re together, nothing is impossible. I thought you might enjoy seeing this villa if you can fit it in your schedule. Until tonight, Dae.

  He’d drawn a map, including sketched landmarks along the way. The final destination was marked with a big heart instead of an X.

  Dae’s directions were perfect. Emily drove past the olive grove that he had sketched, and a mile or so later, she pulled into the driveway of the only house in sight, the front of which Dae had also sketched perfectly. In true Tuscan style, the house boasted shallow roof tiles, many of which were missing or broken, arches above the doors and windows, and beautiful, ornately designed columns. She stepped from the car and crossed the lawn, noticing that the columns were cracked and chipped, and some of the windows were broken. The house was covered in ivy, obviously abandoned. She wondered how Dae knew of this place, and what, if any, significance it had to the area.

  Emily followed a cobblestone walkway to the top of the driveway, where it forked toward either side of the house, and walked to the far side of the property. As she rounded the corner of the house, a beautiful pergola capped by lattice and crawling with vines, similar to the one she and Dae had sat beneath the first night they were together, came into view. She stepped inside and enjoyed the view, overlooking miles of rolling hills and giving her a perfect view of the olive grove she’d passed on the way there. She turned, taking in the expansive yard, and smiled when she noticed an old hand pump off to her left. She loved the antiquity of metal hand pumps. The gentle curves of the handle, the spouts, which were often quite simple and rustic, like this one was, even the pole that held it in place, all added to its charm. Well pumps conjured up images of families coming together, sharing chores, and cooking together like Adelina and Serafina did. She felt a little nostalgic and wondered if it was too late for her mother to teach her how to cook. Catherine Braden was a talented cook and had always enjoyed preparing their family’s meals. As a girl, she’d striven hard to keep up with her brothers. Whether with grades or outside horsing around, Emily had never wanted to be left behind, and it seemed she’d never slowed down enough to do girlie things. With five active brothers, there was always someone to keep up with. Then she’d gone away to college and was busy with grades and a social life. She wondered now how much she’d missed out on by not taking the time to learn to cook with her mother.

  She tucked away the thought to revisit another time and looked across the yard at the house. She spotted an alcove toward the rear of the house and stepped beneath the arched entranceway into the cozy enclosure. Old planters hung on the wall to her left, their contents dead and brittle. A broken wooden chair lay on its side, and the cement floor was littered with leaves and dirt. A waist-high wall faced the yard, with three arched openings spanning the length. Emily imagined how beautiful the area would look with colorful blooms and green plants decorating the unique iron and clay planters. There were two wooden doors at the far end. She tried the handle of each and was bummed to find them both locked, of course. She went back outside the way she’d come and scanned the backyard.

  “Holy cow.” The largest olive tree she’d ever seen was growing in the wall of the house. She’d never seen anything like this. Her eyes trailed the left side of the wall to where it disappeared into the bark of the tree, engulfed by years of growth. And then, as if the wall had been built straight through the massive trunk, it continued on the other side of the trunk. As an architect, she could see the unique value in building a house around a tree, as in inside a particular room, but why would anyone want to build the wall of a house into a tree? What stymied her even more was the fact that the wall had not cracked or shifted as the tree grew. This house was built so many years earlier that the tree must have been at least half its size at that time. Walls don’t adapt to the increasing girth of trees. This is not possible.

  No wonder Dae wanted her to see it. Mr. Make the Impossible Possible. How had he even found this house? She wished he were with her. She pulled her phone from her pocket and stood far back so she could capture the entire tree, then clicked a picture and texted it to him. This is impossible and nothing short of amazing!

  She gazed up at the leafy branches snaking out from the middle of the tree and arching out, thick and tangled, far above the roof.

  Her phone vibrated with a text from Dae. I knew you’d like it. Be sure to walk down the east side of the property. The view is incredible. Heading into another meeting. See you tonight. Miss you.

  She shoved her phone into the pocket of her shorts, feeling as if she were walking on air. He missed her. He misses me! She felt good all over knowing that he was feeling the same connection as she was.

  She walked toward the trunk. She loved the gnarled and twisted trunks of olive trees. She’d never seen them up close, but she’d studied photos of them and they’d always intrigued her. No two were the same, and she found even the most gnarled trunks lovely. Knowing that she’d found this place only because of Dae made her admire the trees even more.

  It took a moment of staring at the lacy bark to realize what she was looking at. There were pieces of paper, fabric, and ribbons sticking out all over the trunk. She stepped closer, wondering what they were. In the distance, she heard a car door slam and then another. She stilled.

  I’m trespassing. Crap.

  She had visions of being arrested. That would really give her brothers something to worry about.

  She hurried toward the front of the house and made a beeline for her car. The car she’d heard was parked across the street. Three women were holding hands and gazing at the house. Emily climbed into her car as fast as she could before the women could spot her and drove back toward Florence, loving the fact that Dae had thought of her when he’d seen that house.

  LATER THAT EVENING Dae and Emily had dinner at a quaint restaurant on the Arno River. Dae couldn’t take his eyes off of Emily. She looked radiant in a short summery dress with her hair falling loosely over her breasts. They’d already finishe
d eating a delicious meal of zuppa de arselle, soup with bread, tomato, and mussels, and tagliatelle ai funghi, tagliatelle pasta with mushrooms, and were sharing a bottle of wine as Emily told him about her afternoon.

  “It was nice just to stroll through the city and people watch. But the highlight of my day was definitely seeing the villa you gave me directions to. Your map was perfect, by the way.”

  He reached for her hand. “I wish I could have seen your face when you saw the tree.” He was trying to figure out how to tell her that he might have to demolish the house, but she looked too happy to ruin the moment.

  “I didn’t get to look for too long. There were three women who showed up, and I was worried about trespassing, so I took off. Can you imagine if I called home to tell my brothers that I’d been arrested? They’d never let me out of their sight again.”

  “I would have been there to bail you out.” He shifted his seat closer and draped an arm around her. “Did you see all the things that were on the tree? It looked almost as if it had been decorated.”

  “I saw that, too, and it made me think of this place Adelina told me about. The House of Wishes. She called it something else today. Something about love.”

  “Well, that tree would have to be called albero di amore, tree of love.”

  “That’s it! That’s exactly what she called it.” Emily’s eyes widened, and her jaw dropped. “That’s got to be the place she was talking about. She said the women around here go there and make wishes for matters of the heart. Relationships, fertility, that sort of thing.”

  She leaned forward and stroked his cheek. He loved when she did that. Hell, he loved when she touched him anywhere.

  “Dae, I think you sent me to the House of Wishes. She said that’s how she met her husband, by wishing for him. There. At that house, I think. And Luca? She said Serafina wished for him, too. It’s got to be the same place. I wonder if it’s where they go every morning to pray for Dante’s safe return. If it is, it’s probably also the place she told me I should go.” Emily gazed out over the water and sighed with a dreamy look in her eyes.

  “I wonder why she thought you should go there.” Dae thought he knew the answer to that. Earlier that morning, when he’d had coffee with Adelina, she’d told him that he had the look of love in his eyes. She said that Tuscany had a way of bringing lovers together, but not all lovers. Only the ones who were destined to be together. Dae wasn’t sure how he felt about the notion of destiny, much less that a geographical location could have anything to do with two people finding each other. Although now, as he sat with Emily pressed against his side, looking at him like he was more special than the Florence Cathedral, setting all sorts of unfamiliar emotions free in his heart, he began to reconsider his belief.

  “She said she saw something in your eyes.” She blinked up at him and nibbled on her lower lip. He knew she was holding back.

  “Something?”

  “Mm-hmm.” She fiddled with the ends of her hair in that adorable, nervous way she had.

  Dae paid for dinner; then they walked beneath the star-spotted sky. After a few minutes of comfortable silence, Dae said, “She was right.”

  “Who?”

  He stopped by the water and gazed into Emily’s eyes. He could drown in those sensual dark pools of emotion. He felt himself slipping down a slope toward her, and he didn’t know how to put on the brakes—or if he wanted to.

  “Adelina,” he answered. “I do have feelings for you, Emily, and not just the kind driven by thoughts of the dirty things I want to do with you. I have real feelings for you. Big ones that are sort of knocking me for a loop.”

  She dropped her eyes, and worry passed through them. When she met his gaze, the worry was gone, replaced with sincerity. “I feel that way, too.”

  A simple, honest answer. No promises of more, no pleas for more details on his feelings. She wasn’t needy or clingy, and that made him like her even more and drove home how real and different Emily was.

  They strolled along the water for a while longer, letting their admissions settle in and bind them together. Then they drove back to the villa, and Dae swore everything felt different. Where the air had felt electrified before, now, with their feelings out on the table, that electricity was sharper, heavier, more substantial and meaningful.

  At the villa, they sat on the back patio overlooking the grounds. Emily cuddled up against him and curled her legs onto the bench they shared.

  “How did you find that villa you sent me to?” Emily asked.

  He’d been worrying about this moment, and now that it was here, he was ready to face it head-on. At least he hoped he was.

  “That’s the house I came here to assess.” He watched as understanding dawned on her.

  “To demolish or to purchase as an investment?”

  He heard the worry in her voice and wished he had a different answer to give her, but all he had to offer was the truth. “I’m here to assess its demolition.”

  Emily nodded. Her lips pressed into a serious line. “And if it’s the same house that Adelina told me about? What if it’s the House of Wishes?”

  “I honestly don’t know, Em. I only just learned of this tonight. We don’t even know if it’s the same house she’s talking about. And besides, it’s a myth. A legend.”

  “But that’s what dreams are made from. If it’s the same house, it’s where Serafina prayed she’d have Luca. Where Adelina left her hope of meeting Marcello. What if it is the same place? I know how this sounds, Dae. I know it’s silly and maybe childish, but what if it’s the same one? Adelina said women have been wishing there forever. Will you tear it down?” She crossed her arms, and his gut twisted.

  How could a house and a tree form a barrier between them?

  “I haven’t thought that far ahead.” He put his arm around her and felt her resist. “Baby, you can’t seriously be mad at me for this, can you?”

  “I’m not mad,” she said quietly. “I don’t know if I even believe in this myth, but that’s not the point.” She leaned in to his side. “They believe in it. Isn’t that what matters? For generations women have believed in something. It makes me sad to think that if that is the House of Wishes and you tear it down, all those women who believed their love stemmed from what they did there will have part of their history obliterated. And what about poor Serafina? If that’s where she prays every morning for her husband’s safe return, won’t you feel like you’re letting her down?”

  This conversation was a lot harder than he’d anticipated. “Aw, babe, there’s so much to process about this. So what you’re suggesting is that if it is the same place, then I should walk away from it.” Can I even do that? He never walked away from jobs unless they were too dangerous or there were legal complications that made it impossible for him to do the work. Then again, he’d never had a girlfriend who wasn’t totally captivated by what he did for a living. Or who cared so much about something she didn’t own.

  He’d never dated Emily Braden.

  “No. It’s your job.” She cocked her head and looked up at him. “I guess…I don’t know. Maybe?”

  He leaned down and kissed her softly. “You know that if it’s not me who demolishes it, they’ll just hire someone else to do it.”

  “Ugh. Well, there’s only one thing to do. We have to find out if it is the place she told me about. Maybe it’s not even an issue. We can ask Adelina tomorrow.”

  “That sounds good.”

  “How did your meetings go today? I forgot to even ask.”

  The last thing he wanted to do was talk about work any more than they already had. “They were fine, but I’m more interested in how we’re doing. Work is just that for me, Em. It’s work. I love what I do. It pays the bills, and most of the time it’s interesting and fun, but when I’m with you, I feel like everything else is secondary. Promise me tomorrow.”

  “Tomorrow.” She smiled.

  “Good. I have something planned.”

  “I guess since I g
ave up checking email for you, I can give up my itinerary, too.” She spoke sweetly and softly, without a hint of disappointment.

  “First of all…” He touched the ends of her hair and kissed her. “I would never think about making you miss out on a thing. Second, we have three more days together, and I want to make the most of them.”

  She banged her forehead against his chest. “Three days. I hate that.”

  “I know. But even after we leave, we’ll make sure we see each other.” He pulled her onto his lap and gathered her hair over her shoulder. “You can’t cut me off cold turkey. I’ll have Emily withdrawal.”

  “I have no interest in cutting you off. I want you to stay for the whole nine days I’m here; then I can put you in my suitcase and carry you home.”

  He laughed at her serious tone. “That would be quite a feat, you carrying me in a suitcase.” He lifted her arm and shook it. “You’re in great shape, baby, but you’ve got to build some muscle to carry all this around.” He ran a hand down his chest, then took her in a passionate kiss.

  “I love to kiss you,” he said against her lips.

  “Then take me upstairs and show me how much.”

  Done.

  Chapter Nine

  EMILY LAY ON her back, one arm across her stomach, the other arced over her head, resting on the pillow. Her room was silent save for their heavy breathing. Even in the darkness she could see the red blooms of the poppies surrounding them on every surface. He did that for her. For us. Everything he did was romantic and thoughtful, from the little map he’d drawn to the way he was touching the outside of her thigh with his fingertips. Feathery flutters fanned her leg and made her excited all over again, even after they’d made love until they both fell to the mattress, sated and spent.

  “Wow.” Dae reached for her hand.

  “Wow? That’s what you say after you have sex?”